Apple TV is adding to its growing collection of apps! Today Apple announced that the WatchESPN app and HBO Go is being added to the lineup! The catch with both of these is that you have to have a subscription to an authorized provider (i.e. Comcast), and you have to have those channels in your package to be able to view the apps on Apple TV. For those that have those subscriptions, this will give an awesome additional feature with Apple TV. With WatchESPN you can watch live events, SportsCenter, and even over seasons sporting events like Cricket and Australian Rules Football. With HBO GO you get a great assortment of on demand content with HBO.

Here is the statement from Apple:

“HBO GO and WatchESPN are some of the most popular iOS apps and are sure to be huge hits on Apple TV,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “We continue to offer Apple TV users great new programming options, combined with access to all of the incredible content they can purchase from the iTunes Store.”

Apple keeps improving on to the best home television streaming box!

Lost in the juicy goodness of the announcements of iOS 7, Mavericks, and the new Mac Pro, was the announcement of the new AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule. Obviously this isn’t a huge surprise, because wireless routers just aren’t sexy headline grabbing products.

The announcement of these new wireless devices should at least grab a little bit of your attention, because that means your home WiFi speeds are going to get a lot better. For about six years now, 802.11N has been the standard wireless speed that you’ve seen on the market. That has now been surpassed by the new 802.11AC wireless signal. Why is this a big deal? That means that soon, your wireless speeds will be 3 times faster than before! Now this doesn’t automatically work for every wireless device out there. Your device has to have an 802.11ac card built into it to truly utilize the speed. The good news is that since the new AirPorts have this new wireless, and the new MacBook Airs have been announced with this new wireless, it appears most, if not all, future Apple releases will have the upgraded wireless in them as well.

The Time Capsule is available in two and three terabyte options, for your wireless backup needs!

Hardware was announced this past week, although it may not have been the hardware everyone was hoping for.

Apple announced a refresh of the MacBook Air line of laptops! There was no major changes or revisions, just some updates!

The first update was to the 4th generation Intel Core processors. These ‘Haswell’ chips are significantly more efficient when it comes to energy consumption. The battery life of the 11″ Air is now nine hours, while the 13″ is now up to 12 hours!

The next change is moving the Airs to the new wireless speed, 802.11ac. This change will significantly change the wireless speed of the Airs. Here is the official statement from Apple on this update:

“MacBook Air now supports ultrafast 802.11ac Wi-Fi. When connected to an 802.11ac base station — including the new AirPort Extreme and AirPort Time Capsule — wireless performance is up to 3x faster than with the previous generation of MacBook Air.”

They also updated the hard drive sizes on the Airs, so now both the 11″ and 13″ start at 128GB, or you can pick the upgraded model that has 256GB.

After years the Mac Pro has seen its first update, and boy is it an update. Apple rebuilt the Mac Pro from the ground up. No longer is it the huge aluminum box, but rather it is now a cylindrical machine about 1/8 the size of the old Pro machines. The outside slides off to expose the insides of the machine, and what this bad boy has on the inside is impressive! It has enough power to run three 4K monitors! The processors, RAM, graphics cards, and the hard drives have been upgraded. It is now running high end solid state hard drives to eliminate the bottle neck that traditional hard drives have.

The center of the Pro is the cooling apparatus, it has fans that pull heat up and out the top of the machine to keep this monster cool.

It also possibly has the coolest setup of I/O on any computer. So when you spin the Pro around to access the ports, they will light up so you can see which ports are which for easy access!

The MacBook Airs are shipping now, and they are starting to show up at Simply Mac locations, just contact your closest one for availability.

The Mac Pro will be out later this year – we’ll have more details as they become available!

To see everything that Apple announced at WWDC click here.

To see more details on iOS 7 click here.

To see more on OS X Mavericks click here.

We have a winner for todays giveaway!

Dale McCrary! 

Email social@simplymac.com to claim your prize!!

Click the image to enlarge!

Since the iPhone has hit the market in 2007, the Mac has kind of taken the back burner. So it’s not surprising  that Apple’s announcement of the new OS X took a back seat to iOS 7 at this years WWDC.

People should be paying attention to the new Mac OS, because it has some great additions!

The first thing Apple touched on was the name of the OS. Here is the history of the naming convention of Mac OS X.

Public Beta of 10.0 – Kodiak

Actual 10.0 – Cheetah

Version 10.1 – Puma

Version 10.2 – Jaguar

Version 10.3 – Panther

Version 10.4 – Tiger

Version 10.5 – Leopard

Version 10.6 – Snow Leopard

Version 10.7 – Lion

Version 10.8 – Mountain Lion

So the general theme for OS X names have been big cats. Apple announced that they wanted a new naming convention that could last the next 10 years. So since Apple is based in California, they decided to go with some landmarks in California as the new naming convention. For many non-Californians, you may be asking where or what is Mavericks? Well, from Wikipedia, here is an explanation:

Mavericks is a winter destination for some of the world’s best big wave surfers. Very few riders become big wave surfers; and of those, only a select few are willing to risk the hazardous, sometimes deadly, conditions at Mavericks. An invitation-only contest is held there most winters, when the waves come.

So hopefully that helps you clarify the name ‘Mavericks’ for Mac OS.

Now onto the features.

First off, OS X didn’t see a big overhaul like iOS. It maintains the same look and feel everyone is familiar with. It’s all about new features and apps!

iBooks for Mac

If you are like me, and you like to read on your iPad or iPhone, you’ve been wanting iBooks for Mac so you can read on a bigger screen! Well, Apple is finally bringing that with Mavericks. It is the iBooks you know and love on iOS, but with some Mac centric features. It is really optimized for text books on Macs. A student could have multiple books open, take notes right there, as well as make study flip cards! Of course, with iBooks in iCloud, when you have a book on one Apple device, with iCloud it will automatically sync the book, your notes, and bookmarks!

Maps for Mac

If you like to look up Maps on your Mac, maybe some directions, then the new Maps for Mac app should help you out a ton. It has the same FlyOver feature, as well as the same general look and feel of the iOS version. However there is going to be one crowning feature that will make Maps for Mac awesome. I like to look up directions on my Mac before I go somewhere, but then I have the problem of getting it over to my iPhone. Well, with Maps for Mac you can look up directions on your Mac and send them to your iPhone (with iOS 7)!

iCloud Keychain

Passwords are a necessary evil. The reason I call them that is because a lot of sites require different combinations of passwords that make it almost impossible to remember passwords for every site. The app 1Password has helped a lot of people out with this, but it also came with a fee and was separate app from the OS. In Mavericks, iCloud Keychain can remember your passwords, help you create passwords, remember your credit cards (if you’d like), and sync them across all devices.

Multiple Displays 

This is a great update to OS X. Many Mac users, especially in offices (like at Simply Mac), use multiple screens with their Macs. Apple has really improved how well OS X uses multiple screens.

First, when you are running multiple displays, normally if you are in a window the menu bar and dock remain on your primary display. With Mavericks you will have access to the dock on both displays, as well as the programs menu bars.

Second, when you went full screen with apps before, it would basically render the other screen useless. With Mavericks, when you go full screen it will just effect the screen that is going full screen. The second screen will not be effect and will allow you to make a full screen app on that screen as well.

Third, for those of us who like to multitask and use Mission Control we’ll enjoy the ability to now have mission control on both displays.

Last, if you have an Apple TV, you can do screen mirroring with Mountain Lion. With Mavericks you can use Apple TV that is plugged into your TV as an independent display. So you can now be working on your Mac screen and wirelessly move items to your TV! So if you’re doing a presentation of a video on your TV, take notes or surf the web with your regular screen!

Notifications

Notifications is getting a bit of a facelift. You can now interact with your notifications, so if you receive an iMessage, you can respond directly within the notification that pops up on your screen.

Also, similar to iOS, you can receive notifications from your favorite websites if you choose, like eBay or ESPN.

Finder Tabs

Finder is something that people use all the time and probably don’t notice it. With Mavericks, like Safari, you can now have tabs in the window. When you are working with files in your Documents folder and trying to move it to something like AirDrop, it can become a pain. Tabs will make it easier to navigate and use the Finder windows on your Mac.

Tags

Here is how Apple explains tabs:

Tags are a powerful new way to organize and find your files, even documents stored in iCloud. Simply tag files you want to organize together with a keyword, like “Important.” Then when you want to find those files, just click Important in the Finder sidebar or enter it in the search field. Tag a file once, or give it multiple tags to assign it to multiple projects.

OS X Mavericks has some great new features, and it should be faster and more efficient with the changes they did under the hood.

Mavericks will run on all existing Macs that are sold today! The software will not be released until fall, which is a bit of a downer!

To see a wrap up of the WWDC keynote click here!

To see the iOS 7 wrap up click here!